All Agency Meeting

What a day we had at the food bank.....approximately 275 representatives of the agencies who draw food from us on a daily basis joined us for an hour and a half luncheon meeting. I can't say enough about the professionalism of the St Mary's Staff. Beginning with Norm Gold and our Agency Relations Department that pulled it all together, created an agenda that would attract our agencies and coordinated SMFB Staff from all departments, it was a very successful event. The Community Kitchen team, working with a class of students who were 3 days into the program, served up a terrific lunch, which was appreciated by all. The response from the agencies was overwhelmingly positive and in talking with folks after the meeting, they hoped we would continue to have them on a regular basis.

Volunteer Recognition Event

This morning was our annual Volunteer Recognition event. More than 80 of our volunteers and individuals representing corporate and community groups joined us for a 7:30 AM continental breakfast and awards program. Our volunteers play such a critical role in our being able to serve the community. I calculated, if we had to hire staff to perform the roles volunteers do for us throughout the facility, we would ship 10 million pounds less food. This is based on having to take almost $1.7 million dollars in financial donations, now spent on out bound food distribution programs, to pay full time staff. They make an incredible contribution to the community.

Lucia Causey, who spent 19 years in leadership positions with the Volunteer Center of Maricopa County, was our guest speaker. She shared the following poem which tells the story best:

Once upon eternity,
above the clouds so high,
There were some chosen Angels,
Who had no wings to fly.

Their hands were made for helping,
Their hearts were tender too,
Their smiles were warm and happy,
And glowed as halos do!

So God sent down these Angels,
Because they were such dears,
To spread their gentle love on earth--
WE CALL THEM VOLUNTEERS!

Graduation Day

Friday was graduation day for 8 students in our Community Kitchen program. CK is a very special program here at St Mary's. While all of our other programs involve the distribution of food to individuals, families and agency partners, CK is all about helping an individual get a fresh start. The 14 week curriculum spends half the time on foodservice kitchen skills and the other half on life skills. We firmly believe it is the life skills portion which helps our students truly change their lives. It gives them the skills to cope more effectively with handling money, dealing with stressful situations, improving their interpersonal communication skills and managing their schedules. All of these classes are designed to help insure their success once they are given the opportunity to make a livable wage plus health benefits. The challenges they battle on a daily basis outside the program are as difficult as the classroom and kitchen instruction modules. Almost a third of the students who have gone through the program in the last year were homeless. They were either living in transitional housing, a shelter or temporarily bunking with a friend. Imagine yourself trying to get through a 14 week program unsure about the roof over your head and on top of that 30% of our students are single parents.

The real gratifying part of Community Kitchen is more than 90% of our graduating students are working in foodservice positions a year after graduation and many have already been promoted into high level jobs.......we are changing lives with this program.

Agency Partner

Today I received a stack of handwritten thank you notes from folks in our community being served by "The Phoenix Shanti Group". Shanti is one of our agency partners that provides housing, education and direct client services to individuals and families infected with and affected by HIV/AIDS. One of their training programs is designed to provide the student with the skills needed to become a nurse's assistant. It is tough for the students to go to school, maintain a family and work. So the agency turns to St Mary's for emergency food boxes to assist the students while they complete their training. I wish I could share all of the notes with you but that is not practical. However, here are a couple of quotes from some of the letters.

"I would like to thank you for the time put into preparing our food boxes. They were wonderful and very helpful. I really appreciated it and it came just in time"

"It is hard enough supporting ourselves, but with no job while attending school, your assistance was more than you can imagine. They were encouragement and blessings....not only for myself and my classmates, but for our families"

"Sometimes it is difficult to focus on success and achievement if we are worried about feeding ourselves and our families. The food boxes contained high quality food and I was overwhelmed by the generosity of the boxes"

"the boxes really helped me at home with my food and my son with diapers"

How can you read those comments and not feel good about what our donors enable us to do for the community?

America's Second Harvest Conference

Monday and Tuesday of this week I attended the Western Region Conference for America's Second Harvest. A2H, as we refer to the organization, is a group of 218 food banks located all across the country focused on serving the needs of the hungry. As a little side note.....John van Hengel, the founder of St Mary's Food Bank, was also one of the founders of A2H and helped many communities in the United States start up their own food banks.

This meeting included Executive Directors and members of the their staffs from approximately 50 food banks serving the western United States. Its hard to explain the energy, compassion, commitment and willingness to share expertise that you feel when this group comes together. Every where you turn, someone has a new idea or a story to tell about the communities they serve. The stories are not only about the folks who receive food from the food banks but include the incredible generosity of our donors.

One quick story..... everyone is aware of the impact of the four hurricanes which hit Florida last year. The A2H network sent almost 300 truck loads of food into the area to support the demand being served by our member food banks in the state. The Fort Myers food bank suffered severe damage to their facility. They received a phone call from a individual in Michigan who had read about their challenge and offered to find and purchase them a new facility. Can you imagine that kind of generosity....just amazing!

One other statistic .....In the last 12 months, the A2H network of food banks gathered and distributed almost 2 BILLION pounds of food into communities all across the USA. A2H is recognized as the leading hunger relief organization in the country.

UPS Volunteer Group

Last Thursday we had a group of 20 UPS managers and executives from all over Arizona join us for the day. The group spent the morning and part of the afternoon using our Board Room for their monthly management meeting. We were able to supply them with all of their audio visual needs and refreshments. I had the opportunity to welcome the group and talk to them about the issue of hunger right here in Arizona, give them a little history lesson of St Mary's and then talk about the role we play in distributing food into our community. It was a wonderful opportunity to expose a senior group of managers to an issue they really did not understand or comprehend the scale of right in their own backyards. Mid-afternoon, after their business meeting ended, the group changed out of their business attire and moved into the warehouse and proceeded to sort 10,000 pounds of food .....setting a new record for the amount sorted in one hour. I know this group from UPS had a very productive business meeting but also took the opportunity to give back to the community through volunteering. What a wonderful combination.....definitely a WIN - WIN - WIN.....UPS - ST MARY'S - THE COMMUNITY!!!!

Volunteer Opportunities

The Volunteer Center of Maricopa County has recognized St Mary's Food Bank as one of their "Top 5 Volunteer Opportunities" of the week. This recognition is part of a community service promotion being done in conjunction with KPHO Channel 5 and Fulton Homes encouraging folks in our area to volunteer 5 hours a month to support non-profits in our community.

Volunteers are such a critical part of our ability to serve the community. Every week we have 450-500 individuals join us at the food bank and help us sort food, pack food boxes, re-package bulk items into family size bags, help in the administration area, and assist our agencies in their food selection process. Last year our volunteers donated over 100,000 hours to St Mary's. Without their support we would have had to hire an additional 48 full time employees. Volunteers enable us to insure that more than 95% of the financial and food support we receive from our donors goes back into the community in the form of food distribution programs. It is important to remember our need for volunteers is year round. So if your schedule permits, please call our Volunteer Services Department at 602-352-3640 and sign up today.

On Wednesday April 20th at 7:30 AM we will be holding our annual "Volunteer Recognition" breakfast here at the food bank recognizing "the best of the best" of our volunteer team and thank all who support us with their gift of time. Give us a call to reserve your seat today!

Dwarko Sundani & SMFB Staff 040505
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Special Visitor

This morning we had a very special visitor join us at the food bank for a tour. Dwarko Sundrani from Bodhgaya India, who is the last disciple of Mahatma Gandhi was in Phoenix on the final segment of a tour of the United States. Dwarko is the founder of 360 schools in India and has spent his life focused on the development of all kinds of vocational service programs for the under priviledged. He told us stories of helping families start gardens to be able to grow their own food and become more self sufficient. However, he soon recognized the key to ending the poverty cycle was education and turned his focus to starting schools for the children. He and his travel companion, Sri Sridharan, were very impressed by the amount of food we distribute and the way we work with the community to secure donations.

Girl Scouts 040205
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Mmmmmilk & Cookies 2005

Saturday morning was the 4th Annual Mmmmmilk and Cookies event here at St Mary's. Imagine.... Between 7 AM and 11 AM 800 Girl Scouts, Brownies and their leaders came by St Mary's to drop off Girl Scout Cookies. During the annual Girl Scout cookie sale this year, a cookie buyer had the option of buying the cookies and donating them to the food bank instead of taking delivery themselves. The Girl Scouts called it their "Gift of Caring Project". To complete the Milk and Cookie relationship Shamrock Farms donated 10,000 8 ounce cartons of 2% milk......what a combination. The kids delivered 12,510 boxes of cookies to the food bank for us to use over the next month during our school distribution programs. They also brought $400 in cash donations which they had received for the food bank

It was a great day! The girls and their leaders not only dropped off the cookies but they stayed and went for a tour of the food bank to learn about the hunger issue and the role St Mary's plays in serving the needs of our community. It was an eye opener for both the kids and their leaders. Their favorite part of the tour was the trip through our 22,000 square foot cooler/freezer to see the cases and cases of milk donated by Shamrock Farms. We also had live entertainment, a special visit by Miss Junior Arizona and Channel 5 TV stopped by to film a segment for the late news.

Thanks to Kate Thoene from the food bank for all her efforts in pulling together another successful Mmmmmilk & Cookies event.